Big Slice Kettle-Cooked Apples Cherry Vanilla

It’s been difficult for me to strike a good balance lately. One of the benefits of running a small blog like this is small fame- little notoriety, the product of hard work and awful writing, and having my name on a small corner of the world. It’s one of the detriments as well. I own this, but in a world where it is becoming increasingly common to scour the ‘net for any trace of Hunger Games fanfiction in order to see if your applicant qualifies to be a bathroom attendant, a girl’s gotta be careful. And the pressure is on. I’m applying for real, live summer jobs as a real, live summer associate or law clerk or 80’s power suit representative. So I’m having trouble talking, I guess.

It’s not that anything has happened in particular, it’s just hard to maintain the image that I’m trying to present. Am I a twee recipe blogger with cute stories about Pet X and Boyfriend Y and our mutual farmer’s collective? I am not. Am I a graphic designer? Am I one of those ‘cute gays’? Do I hobnob with Martha? No. I love my corner of the internet, however weird and sparsely populated it is. Not every single post can be an emotional, sun-filled photo collective romp through my day. At least I provide my instagram followers with the occasional bowtie shot. For now, I’m going to do as I’ve done in the past and speak through food. It’s not subversive. But it’s still a story. So here’s some goddamned applesauce.Applesauce, along with peanut butter, quinoa, and other grocery staples, has desperately tried to make itself trendy throughout the years, whether by adding other fruits into the mix (kinky!) or attempting to make itself as portable as a viscous fruit sauce can possibly be. The latest iteration is Big Slice Kettle-Cooked Apples, in Cherry Vanilla. This was sent over, along with FIVE boxes of cereal, from Platefull. I regret to inform you, wonderful General Mills marketers, that I am not a child army. However, I’mma go ham on some Trix today.I was excited to try these, as it deviated from standard applesauce by using whole slices of apples, large pieces of cherries, Madagascar vanilla, and a little almond extract. With a clean, clever design and 90 calories for the whole pack, it was definitely a tempting treat. It’s not the best applesauce I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely the most exciting. Honestly, with the range of flavors, I’d probably buy it again for the novelty of trying Peach Green Tea Aloe or Boysenberry Chocolate. But the ratio of sauce to apples is still too high, and the slices risk getting goopy, rather than staying firm and intact as the photo would imply. The influence of the vanilla and almond is muted compared to the cloying cherry flavors, which oddly surfaced from a mere two cherry chunks.

I think this is an ambitious line and that they’ve nailed the cheerful liner notes, slender packaging, and flavor options. It hits the mark better than its successors and could be the very brand to propel applesauce into 2014 with the fanfare it deserves.